There's certainly a word for this non-character, isn't there? Someone educate me, please.
I would call him the omniscient narrator. Who can be extradiegetic if he talks from outside a story he isn't part of himself or intradiegetic if he is a character in the story he tells. Though most intradiegetic narrators are of course limited to their own view of the story as it develops and are thus not omniscient. You wouldn't believe how complicated the typology of narrators we learnt in comparative literature class is. I still don't understand half of it.
I do believe that there is such a thing as authorial intention, and that you can to some degree discern it. But I also believe that any good text is open to more than one interpretation, and that often the author herself does not see all the possible readings in advance. How I read a text is influenced by the experiences I bring with me into the meeting with that text, and it is impossible to tell how I as an individual reader will react to a specific string of words. Certainly, a good author will know how to steer her readers in the direction she wants them to go, but the very nature of writing and reading makes any herding technique less than fool-proof. My point, I guess, is that though I do believe authorial intention exists, I don't think the author has any greater right than anyone else to interpret the work after it is completed. Any interpretation that is supported by the text is valid, whether it differs from what the author says or not. Then, of course, there are insane interpretations not supported by the text, with which fandom abounds, but that's a different matter... ;)
I'm so sorry about your dog. I know how it feels to lose a pet. *hugs you tight*
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I would call him the omniscient narrator. Who can be extradiegetic if he talks from outside a story he isn't part of himself or intradiegetic if he is a character in the story he tells. Though most intradiegetic narrators are of course limited to their own view of the story as it develops and are thus not omniscient. You wouldn't believe how complicated the typology of narrators we learnt in comparative literature class is. I still don't understand half of it.
I do believe that there is such a thing as authorial intention, and that you can to some degree discern it. But I also believe that any good text is open to more than one interpretation, and that often the author herself does not see all the possible readings in advance. How I read a text is influenced by the experiences I bring with me into the meeting with that text, and it is impossible to tell how I as an individual reader will react to a specific string of words. Certainly, a good author will know how to steer her readers in the direction she wants them to go, but the very nature of writing and reading makes any herding technique less than fool-proof. My point, I guess, is that though I do believe authorial intention exists, I don't think the author has any greater right than anyone else to interpret the work after it is completed. Any interpretation that is supported by the text is valid, whether it differs from what the author says or not. Then, of course, there are insane interpretations not supported by the text, with which fandom abounds, but that's a different matter... ;)
I'm so sorry about your dog. I know how it feels to lose a pet. *hugs you tight*